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In this day and age of instant gratification it is odd to have an experience where you take all the right steps diligently and not end up with a "positive" result. After spending hours out in the wilderness, my inclination based on societal training it to be very disappointed in not having a freezer full of meat. And yet somehow this is not the really the case. Sure there is a bit of that since I do want to be eating more hoofed animals that I have personally harvested but since that is currently not an option I have been revelling in the experience of being out there.

After Destiny was, in my books, such a massive disappointment, I was really hoping that the trend for this fall's new game releases wasn't going to follow that. Now that I am a couple weeks of casual play into Shadow of Mordor I can say that, thankfully, we are not on a crazy downward spiral. This game is thrilling and engaging in ways I haven't seen before.

As is the new norm in October, my brother-in-law and I went out with a friend on Monday to an area south of the city we like to call 'partridge square.' We usually start our day at the range and make sure our shotgun skills are up to par and then continue on to what has always been a very fruitful location for upland game birds. But on this occasion not one bird flushed. It was a situation I had never been in emotionally.

So a few months back I was reading a post by one of my favourite food bloggers Hank Shaw, and he opened my mind to more fermentation that I really enjoy but never really put it together. A fermentation that is more than a delicious, complex way to get you wasted, A fermentation employed by, apparently, a lot more people than I had realized, including an old standby. Tobasco. Being no stranger to fermented goods and barrel aging things to delicious effect, I decided to try my hand at hot sauce. I started by doing what anyone else would, I sent a link to the friend who uses as much hot sauce as I do, and said let's do it!!

Out for my weekly practice yesterday with a friend and we ended up being retaught lessons we have already learned. More often than not the troubles we are having are our own damn fault, and if we had just taken a little more time copious amounts of time and money would have been saved. Here's what happens when you don't blame yourself...

...Humans are ridiculous, we all do it, all the time. And no matter how much we tell ourselves that is the general public that is the worst for it we fail to recognize it in ourselves. Passing the blame. Passing the blame to people, to timing, to inanimate objects, but never to user error.

It's just not in the cards, the stars didn't align for it at birth, it's just not its destiny. The game I was most excited for this year is a total let down. I guess their marketing team hasn't heard of "managing expectations" since they spent HALF A BILLION dollars telling people how awesome it was supposed to be. There are a ton of reviews that echo my thoughts, Destiny is the global let down. It's Mass effect without the depth, it's WoW without the open world or loot mechanics, it's Call of Duty without the customization. So to sum up Destiny is a Linear loot grind, storyless and no where near as interactive or social as it was meant to be.

It's been a little while since my last post but now that we are getting back into the swing of things and hunting season is upon us I guess I better get back into it...

So my fascination with things that go bang continues; this time with a new-to-me-old-gun. It's a British gun, sort of. It was, at least,made during World War 2 for the British soldiers and was one of the best rifles of its time. My model though has some history of American involvement in the war... from before they were involved. The Making of the Lee Enfield No4Mk1* prompted the creation of the Lend/Lease agreement in the US, a document that allowed the non-committal yanks to get involved in the war without getting involved in the war. When shit hit the fan in WWII the Brits couldn't keep up production of the No4, with their 3 main factories being targeted by bombing runs, so they had to outsource to a more stable construction base, enter Longbranch here in Canada and Savage south of the border.

Quit yer bitchin, man up, and start to understand why the Calgary Stampede is such an important part of who we are as a city. There are only a few points I have to make here on the subject and if we can't agree after these that the Stampede is awesome then we can't be friends.

We are all just a little bit country. The west, and western values, had to come from somewhere and for a brief 10 day moment every year - hidden amongst the pop country and drunks - there are glimpses and sound bytes of the better person we all want to be. For 10 days hat tips, door holds and smiles at one another abound. Lyrics reminding us to be grateful for what we have, and stop taking for granted our life and love can be heard in every shop. For 10 days this city unplugs and does what humans were always meant to do; be a community, eating and drinking together and simply having fun with each other, bonding over all of the happenings

It would seem that our trip was dominated by cars, eating rich meals and drinking beer. But to this point both mine and Vanessa's blogs haven't really done justice to the sheer volume of wine we consumed, and there was a lot. Our wine voyage didn't really start until we left Berlin, other than Shanelle having one solitary glass of wein we did the Berliner thing and drank as much beer as we could. But once out of the cities our journey in to some of the best wine experiences Europe has to offer began.

Click in for a few pictures of our journey through European wine country.

I can’t get this childhood French lesson out of my head; a little song we learned with hand actions to remember what each meant:

“On, under, in, in front of, behind,

In front of, behind, in front of, behind,

On, under in, in front of, behind, beside”

We’ve been searching all over Europe for that one little food experience that truly felt local. That little place off the beaten path that has great food a great atmosphere and is where the locals go. We asked the concierge in 4 cities and winemakers in 3 towns but all we seemed to get were the places that were easy for tourists to find and enjoy. However, our last night in Paris we stumbled upon a super great find...

Eat, Play, Hunt

Eat: The YYC scene has a lot of food and booze to offer, ready to discover it? Play: What's life without a little escape? Many ways to remove yourself from reality and have a good time. Hunt: Connect yourself to the world around you. Firearms and meat, are you game?